Taiwan’s Powerchip sells legacy fab it opened just 19 months ago after spending $9.5 billion

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[–] [S] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    That's not really relevant. Just because they don't (won't) have the full vertical integration doesn't mean it won't have an effect. The chips are where there's a shortage. Most brands of assembled sticks of RAM don't make the chips. They buy the chips primarily from Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix. If these chips become more plentiful, then brands like Kingston and GSkill can produce and sell the final product to consumers.

    The real reason it won't help consumers, at least for a while, is that the plant won't be online until late 2027. And that's assuming demand doesn't increase in that time.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 9 months ago

    It is relevant. Because as part of primary business they would have had incentive to produce those consumer goods even if overall profit would have suffered. Without that incentive even if the overall production increases the RAM manufacturers simply wouldn't be able to afford the AI-inflated DRAM prices for Micron to justify selling to them over LLM companies with unlimited funds.

    All three (Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix) said publically that they are milking every possible cent until this market bubble pops and everyone else can fuck off until then.

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  • 15 comments in c/technology@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] [S] 27 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

    To copy my comment on the beehaw.org post, because they and lemmy.world aren't federated:

    This deal may make matters worse for more buyers, because PSMC used the Tongluo site to make legacy DRAM products – the kind of memory used in less advanced products. With the company now exiting the legacy chip biz, that memory will also become more scarce, giving the laws of supply and demand another moment in which to work their way on markets.

    https://www.dqindia.com/esdm/microns-acquisition-of-psmcs-tongluo-fab-could-lift-global-dram-supply-outlook-in-2027-11012307

    PSMC’s current DRAM capacity mainly relies on 25nm and 38nm nodes, which restricts DDR4 production to lower-density products.

    I guess that that's more DDR4 supply drying up. It's going to be some very scarce years for memory until enough new production comes online.

    EDIT:

    https://tech.yahoo.com/computing/articles/amd-ryzen-chief-teases-return-201223682.html

    AMD Ryzen chief teases return of older Zen 3 chips to fight soaring RAM prices — 'That's something we're actively working on right now'

    Restarting production of DDR4-capable hardware isn't going to help nearly as much if nobody is producing DDR4. I guess that there's still DDR4 memory to scavenge from existing computers.

    EDIT2:

    https://www.tweaktown.com/news/109702/as-ram-crisis-intensifies-ddr3-motherboards-are-making-an-improbable-comeback/index.html

    As RAM crisis intensifies, DDR3 motherboards are making an improbable comeback

    Here's one way to avoid paying an absolute fortune for RAM - forget DDR5 or even DDR4 memory, switch back to DDR3, as some folks are doing in China.

    Now I regret throwing out the DDR3 memory that I have in the past.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    One more thought


    I don't think that, even if someone is willing to do so as a stopgap until memory production ramps up adequately, that it's possible to run Windows 11 on a DDR3-based system. DDR4 came out 12 years ago.

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago

    Hope AI collapses and we get an oversupply

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    So does anyone know, is it hard to make RAM?

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

    I'm not really a hardware person, but purely in terms of logic gates, making a memory circuit isn't going to be hard. I mean, a lot of chips contain internal memory. I'm sure that anyone that can fabricate a chip can fabricate someone's memory design that contains some amount of memory.

    For PC use, there's also going to be some interface hardware. Dunno how much sophistication is present there.

    I'm assuming that the catch is that it's not trivial to go out and make something competitive with what the PC memory manufacturers are making in price, density, and speed. Like, I don't think that if you want to get a microcontroller with 32 kB of onboard memory, that it's going to be a problem. But that doesn't really replace the kind of stuff that these guys are making.

    EDIT: The other big thing to keep in mind is that this is a short-term problem, even if it's a big problem. I mean, the problem isn't the supply of memory over the long term. The problem is the supply of memory over the next couple of years. You can't just build a factory and hire a workforce and get production going the moment that someone decides that they want several times more memory than the world has been producing to date.

    So what's interesting is really going to be solutions that can produce memory in the near term. Like, I have no doubt that given years of time, someone could set up a new memory manufacturer and facilities. But to get (scaled-up) production in a year, say? Fewer options there.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    I mean you can't do it in your garage, but if you have the facility with the machines and the staff and the knowledge then yeah it's not hard.

    There is actually a guy making CMOS transistors in his garage because he has some of the machines, but he can't make them micro-sized and can't make whole die sheets. (Also that's transistors for processors, not memory, but they parallel.)

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago

    All those people saying that swap was useless must be feeling quite silly nowadays.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    Well, I hope they don't bcs that just means more AI :/.

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  • 7 comments in c/technology@beehaw.org view that post
    [–] 14 points 9 months ago* (2 children)

    PSMC sounds like a bootleg TSMC lol

    legacy fab it opened just 19 months ago

    what

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  • [–] 18 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    By "legacy" they probably mean that they work with the older process technologies, not that the fab itself is old:

    The acquisition includes an existing 300 mm fab cleanroom of 300,000 square feet and will further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions

    In its May 2024 ’Hooray, we’re open!’ announcement, PSMC said it invested more than NT$300 billion (US$9.5 billion) on the facility, and that it had capacity to produce 50,000 12-inch wafers per month under 55, 40 and 28 nanometer technology nodes.

    Those kinds of chips are still very useful for things like cars and washing machines and such where you don't need bleeding edge chip tech.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago

    Just buying away those chips from entering the personal computer market. Gather around to see our partners new cloud computing marketplace where ownership is a thing of the past!

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

    This deal may make matters worse for more buyers, because PSMC used the Tongluo site to make legacy DRAM products – the kind of memory used in less advanced products. With the company now exiting the legacy chip biz, that memory will also become more scarce, giving the laws of supply and demand another moment in which to work their way on markets.

    https://www.dqindia.com/esdm/microns-acquisition-of-psmcs-tongluo-fab-could-lift-global-dram-supply-outlook-in-2027-11012307

    PSMC’s current DRAM capacity mainly relies on 25nm and 38nm nodes, which restricts DDR4 production to lower-density products.

    I guess that that's more DDR4 supply drying up. It's going to be some very scarce years for memory until enough new production comes online.

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 child)

    It's pretty clear that consumers are intentionally priced out of the market so they have to rent compute as a service.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago

    I don't think that memory manufacturers are in some plot to promote SaaS. It's just that they can make a ton of money off the demand right now for AI buildout, and they're trying to make as much money as they can in the limited window that they have. All kind of industries are going to be collateral damage for a while. Doesn't require a more complicated explanation.

    Michael Crichton had some way of putting "it's not about you" it in Sphere that I remember liking.

    searches

    “I'm afraid that’s true,” Norman said. “The sphere was built to test whatever intelligent life might pick it up, and we simply failed that test.”

    “Is that what you think the sphere was made for?” Harry said. “I don’t.”

    “Then what?” Norman said.

    “Well,” Harry said, “look at it this way: Suppose you were an intelligent bacterium floating in space, and you came upon one of our communication satellites, in orbit around the Earth. You would think, What a strange, alien object this is, let’s explore it. Suppose you opened it up and crawled inside. You would find it very interesting in there, with lots of huge things to puzzle over. But eventually you might climb into one of the fuel cells, and the hydrogen would kill you. And your last thought would be: This alien device was obviously made to test bacterial intelligence and to kill us if we make a false step.

    “Now, that would be correct from the standpoint of the dying bacterium. But that wouldn’t be correct at all from the standpoint of the beings who made the satellite. From our point of view, the communications satellite has nothing to do with intelligent bacteria. We don’t even know that there are intelligent bacteria out there. We’re just trying to communicate, and we’ve made what we consider a quite ordinary device to do it.”

    Like, two years back, there was a glut of memory in the market. Samsung was losing a lot of money. They weren't losing money back then because they were trying to promote personal computer ownership any more than they're trying to deter personal computer ownership in 2026. It's just that demand can gyrate more-rapidly than production capacity can adjust.

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